It’s a great partnership and it’s becoming increasingly necessary to ensure that customers are drawn in at all times of the day and throughout the year. Coffee and ice cream are now appearing as a successful double act in Italian establishments old and new.
And new hybrid concepts that are a cross between a bar, a chocolate shop and an ice-cream parlour confirm the importance of offering a complete choice, to appeal to the different clientele brackets.
“These days customers don’t want everything standardised. Their choice tends to be for less traditional places that are more specific, that have a theme,” says Camilla Furno, from the marketing and development department of Cioccolatitaliani, a concept chocolate store that is an ice cream parlour, café, pastry shop and design boutique rolled into one,with 13 outlets in Italy and ten abroad.
“So there has to be a theme behind what you are doing that creates an identity and points consumers in the direction of a specific product, that nevertheless still offers choice.
And that is exactly what we are trying to do: to start from one of the best-loved foodstuffs of all – chocolate – and and take it away from its seasonal associations, creating synergies with the worlds of ice cream and coffee, so as to construct a product range suited not just to all days of the year, but also to all hours of the day.”
How prominent a part does ice cream paly in all of this? “In Italy it’s right there at the centre. We prepare it fresh every day using artisanal techniques and only the very best ingredients. It alone accounts for 45% of our total sales.
Abroad, meanwhile, chocolate in all its forms from patisserie and viennoiserie to hot chocolate and packaged confections accounts for a similar percentage of profits,” Furno concludes.
This idea of extending the choice of products you offer is also a big hit with Millennials, who don’t like to move around too much, always have very little time and want a very big selection of products, all in the same place.
If they can get that they can pace themselves better and maybe enjoy a few precious moments of relaxation at some point during a hectic day.
It’s a trend that’s also being seen abroad, where the appearance of coffee beans from new, rare sources has led to a whole new interest in the beverage, which if properly presented and managed can really be just the thing to win back all those distracted, disloyal customers.
And that goes not just for bars but also for ice cream parlours, where coffee is a little bit taken for granted but is now appearing in a whole range of products, from frozen creams and desserts to cocktails.
